In Nomine fanfic
There’s an old story about the Song of Preservation being a thing of goodness and beauty, but it doesn’t start well. It starts, in fact, with an Inquisitor.
He was an angel-of that the story is clear. It is whispered that he worked directly for the nameless Angel of Death, but it is also said that he worked for Judgment, or Destiny, or somehow for Fate before his fall. The latter is surely not the case, but the stories agree the Inquisitor had to have been an Elohite. Otherwise the truth is elusive, and It may just be a story.
The Inquisitor was finishing an especially reluctant witness. That witness told him everything including some things that were not true to try to avoid his terrible fate, but the angel was not impressed. The celestial Inquisitor, to his eternal shame, had been compromised by a geas. The witness must be shut in an iron maiden and the door closed. The end of this was unspoken, but no mortal man had ever survived an iron maiden, and this witness was a mortal man.
All of the court save the Inquisitor, the executioner, and one other exited the room as the witness was placed into the maiden. The executioner closed the door and walked calmly out, his footsteps unheard over the screaming of the victim. The Inquisitor looked out from under his hood at his silent companion across the room, who revealed herself to also be an angel. The second angel began a song, stopped, and began again. She clearly wanted to help the innocent victim, but had realized that Healing him while inside the maiden was futile. The amount of Essence it would require would mean the victim would be sealed inside for days until she could refresh, remove the door, and heal again.
The Inquisitor raised his hand and intoned more than sang, his voice at a pitch that vibrated the iron of the device. The blood stopped flowing from under the maiden. The healing angel looked at him with apprehension and dread, for the Inquisitor had put the man in the torture device and was now using a Song better known for cruelty than good. The Inquisitor simply said “I am released” and beckoned to the other. Seemingly oblivious to the screams of the torture victim, the Elohite whispered something into the other angel’s ear, and then began to sing again.
The healing angel pulled open the maiden, where the man inside was now mercifully unconscious. She stole a glance at him, seeing subtle movement in his terrible wounds. She answered the Inquisitor’s low rumble with an airy high note, like a child soprano. He allowed himself a smile, an approval of the healer’s work, and answered. High, low, basso, soprano, release, heal, freeze, repeat. The circled each other as they sang, stepping in time, harmonizing with their voices, paso doble flamenco with their feet. They spared no focus for the room and little for themselves. Only the song, the dance, the Symphony, the man for whom they performed it mattered.
It is said that when it was over the Inquisitor collapsed, spent by the effort. The witness is said to have lived, though he never wrote of the experience and we do not know his name. The healer was too spent to help her fellow angel, and too confused by what he’d done to know who to turn to. She is the only way the story could come down to us, for the Inquisitor was never heard from again, either as an angel or his role. Some say he fell, others that this dance redeemed him from an imminent fall, others that he’s spent his last and scattered his soul. But the duet has not been heard since, and the Angel of Death speaks to no one, and the Song of Preservation so rare as to be mythical. I suppose you could say it was just a story.
He was an angel-of that the story is clear. It is whispered that he worked directly for the nameless Angel of Death, but it is also said that he worked for Judgment, or Destiny, or somehow for Fate before his fall. The latter is surely not the case, but the stories agree the Inquisitor had to have been an Elohite. Otherwise the truth is elusive, and It may just be a story.
The Inquisitor was finishing an especially reluctant witness. That witness told him everything including some things that were not true to try to avoid his terrible fate, but the angel was not impressed. The celestial Inquisitor, to his eternal shame, had been compromised by a geas. The witness must be shut in an iron maiden and the door closed. The end of this was unspoken, but no mortal man had ever survived an iron maiden, and this witness was a mortal man.
All of the court save the Inquisitor, the executioner, and one other exited the room as the witness was placed into the maiden. The executioner closed the door and walked calmly out, his footsteps unheard over the screaming of the victim. The Inquisitor looked out from under his hood at his silent companion across the room, who revealed herself to also be an angel. The second angel began a song, stopped, and began again. She clearly wanted to help the innocent victim, but had realized that Healing him while inside the maiden was futile. The amount of Essence it would require would mean the victim would be sealed inside for days until she could refresh, remove the door, and heal again.
The Inquisitor raised his hand and intoned more than sang, his voice at a pitch that vibrated the iron of the device. The blood stopped flowing from under the maiden. The healing angel looked at him with apprehension and dread, for the Inquisitor had put the man in the torture device and was now using a Song better known for cruelty than good. The Inquisitor simply said “I am released” and beckoned to the other. Seemingly oblivious to the screams of the torture victim, the Elohite whispered something into the other angel’s ear, and then began to sing again.
The healing angel pulled open the maiden, where the man inside was now mercifully unconscious. She stole a glance at him, seeing subtle movement in his terrible wounds. She answered the Inquisitor’s low rumble with an airy high note, like a child soprano. He allowed himself a smile, an approval of the healer’s work, and answered. High, low, basso, soprano, release, heal, freeze, repeat. The circled each other as they sang, stepping in time, harmonizing with their voices, paso doble flamenco with their feet. They spared no focus for the room and little for themselves. Only the song, the dance, the Symphony, the man for whom they performed it mattered.
It is said that when it was over the Inquisitor collapsed, spent by the effort. The witness is said to have lived, though he never wrote of the experience and we do not know his name. The healer was too spent to help her fellow angel, and too confused by what he’d done to know who to turn to. She is the only way the story could come down to us, for the Inquisitor was never heard from again, either as an angel or his role. Some say he fell, others that this dance redeemed him from an imminent fall, others that he’s spent his last and scattered his soul. But the duet has not been heard since, and the Angel of Death speaks to no one, and the Song of Preservation so rare as to be mythical. I suppose you could say it was just a story.